


a labyrinthe man.

by aceface



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: F/M, Infidelity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-02
Updated: 2010-08-02
Packaged: 2017-10-10 21:58:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/104747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceface/pseuds/aceface
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A few years after Inception, Robert meets Ariadne and marries her because "she is the woman of his dreams". Or, how Ariadne grew up and moved on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a labyrinthe man.

She doesn't want to see the team again. Or rather, she does, but she shouldn't. It's too dangerous, and she wouldn't feel comfortable working with Cobb -- once the adrenaline rush dies down, the feeling of pure creation, other things start coming back to her in the middle of the night. She dreams about not making it out of limbo, of growing old and never returning to real life (and even her definitions of real life are beginning to feel hazy and uncertain, and she can't imagine choosing for that to grow, to encompass everything she knows). There's a finer line between waking and dreaming than even she could have imagined and, while she misses the buildings, the control, she manages to pour it into her work.

None of them try to contact her.

The worst part -- _one of_ the worst parts, she corrects herself, is that even reality is beginning to seem like a dream. And what, after all, is reality? A dream is just the same -- looks the same, sounds the same. The only difference is that she can die in a dream -- but then, how does she know that she cannot die in reality? She's never tried -- but, madness lies down that path. Ariadne thinks of Mal, of the pain she caused Cobb and, while it wouldn't be the same, it's certainly not a train of thought that she wants to follow. After all, she wouldn't know where the train leads.

Architecture remains the same, in one life or another. And she missed the rules, after all; there was no challenge when she had nothing to fight against, nothing to outdo, nothing to make people gasp -- because everything in a dream is both magical and ordinary, all at once. In some ways, it's almost _more_ enjoyable in reality -- it was enjoyable in dreams, but only when she had a purpose, labyrinths to create. But now she has assignments and practicalities to include, and barely enough time to even think of inception and all that it meant. (At least, that's what she tells herself. So it really might as well be true.)

She graduates with honours, and she's sure that she earned it -- night after night of not sleeping, ironically, of studying and learning, all over again. It's a fresh start. It's a new beginning.

-

Ariadne feels less optimistic when she starts to understand exactly what reality entails -- at the moment, a lot of days spent sat around in her tiny apartment, making phone call after phone call and sending out letters and resumes, working on them over and over until the floor is littered with drafts of paper. She half wishes she hadn't used her share of the money to pay off her college debts -- a bigger apartment would be lovely, after all, although the way things are going, it seems like she could spend most of the money on her cell phone bills alone.

She doesn't call her parents -- she burned those bridges a long time ago, long before Paris, and she only regrets it at night when she's curled up alone in bed and the covers are over her head. The apartment seems very big and empty, then, all two rooms of it, and she's very aware of her entire being. But -- this isn't night, this is day, and she can achieve anything if she works hard enough. She's been to limbo and come out the other side, she's faced down demons from other people's minds and escaped from explosions untouched. She can easily put up with a few more days of unemployment. 

She licks her tongue along the flap of the last envelope of the night, swallows and feels her mouth empty and dry. Sealing it, she slides her fingers along the crease, sharpening it, and kisses the outside of the envelope for good luck (it leaves a wet mark, but she figures that'll dry soon enough). Maybe this will be the one. Most likely not, she thinks wryly, and drops it in her bag with the others to be mailed tomorrow. She sits there for a moment, surrounded by paper and blueprints and ideas that have no way of getting onto the page.

Her choices have brought her here, and it could easily have been so different. Still -- this is honest, this is real, and she doesn't regret anything. She misses the people, a little, when she's too tired to help it, misses the way Cobb would rest his hand on her shoulder and the way Eames would smirk at her conspiratorially, the way Arthur would leave his gaze resting a little too long... although maybe that last part is more wishful thinking than anything else. But it's better to be here, making her own way, than to be relying on them all her life.

Besides, illegality isn't her thing. Maybe. What she has might not be much, but it's real.

-

"Hello, is this Ariadne?"

"Um, yes, hi, I am. I mean, it is."

"This is Dionysos Corporations. Would you be available for an interview on the third of next month?"

"I -- yes, I would."

"We'll see you then."

-

Sliding open the door, the metal is cool to her touch, and provides Ariadne with the reality check that she needs. She touches the totem in her pocket, more out of habit than any real need to convince herself she's awake, and enters -- one step after another, head high, because nothing can intimidate her after (jumping from a building, narrowly avoiding a freight train, getting caught in an explosion) some of the things she's experienced. This confidence, while useful, serves only to further highlight the way her mouth falls open when she glances at the man seated behind the imposing desk.

Robert Fischer.

And of course, of _course_ she looked into the company; read how the CEO built it up from nothing, how it was something entirely unlike anything he'd done before, but the name slipped past her eyes and she should've looked more closely. (But then, she was never a point-man).

"I've seen you before," he says, eyes alert. He folds the paper neatly, sliding his fingers along the sharp crease before setting it aside and setting his hands in his lap (she assumes; they're out of sight and hidden under the desk). His eyes flicker up and down her, briefly, and she can't quite tell if he's figuring her out or checking her out. Either way, he seems to see something he likes and relaxes marginally, leaning back in his chair and gesturing for her to take a seat. "In a dream, I believe," he adds, and his mouth quirks up as though inviting her to decide whether or not he's joking.

This is a side of him she didn't get to see in the dream, worried for his life, and something about it appeals to her. She lands in the chair a little too heavily, breathless but smiling, and says, "So I guess I'm the woman of your dreams?" She laughs, not taking it too seriously, but Fischer's expression doesn't change.

"I guess you are." He snaps back into business mode like someone flipped a switch, but there's still something in him that she can't quite place -- intrigue, maybe, but she wouldn't be so bold as to assume that. "So. This position." A smile; fake and polite. "Tell me why you want it."

-

He's never anything other than professional but she can sense it, almost, the underlying curiosity. She tries to imagine what it would be like seeing someone from her dreams walking around, breathing, working, but fails -- everyone in her dream has always been a projection of someone she knew. It's something that she can't quite grasp and she is, in turn, intrigued by him -- by what she means to him, what he sees in her (and she maybe allows herself to think, just a little, that maybe it's more than just the dream. Maybe). 

But then -- she's thought something like that before, once. Sometimes ideas are best kept to the imagination, after all.

-

Fischer stops by her desk one day after work. He picks up a few of her scale models, turns them over and over in his hands, and when he sets them down, she notices that his thumb is tucked into his hand. He catches her gaze, glances down, and his smile blossoms slow and self-deprecating. "Bad habit," he says, and she's immediately struck by how much he _doesn't_ say, and how blue his eyes are when they're fixed on nothing but herself.

"Oh, well, I know all about that," she blurts out in a rush to cover the ensuing silence. "Bad habits, I mean, I've got a million." She hasn't been nervous in a long time but there's something about him that sets her on edge -- maybe it's seeing him again, and so close. Like something out of a dream, and she's struck all over again by how much stranger it must be for him, without the underlying knowledge that she has. Without the same firm grasp on what is reality and what isn't.

"I was just wondering," he says, sliding his hands into his pockets and distracting her gaze. "If you wanted to go for a coffee? You could tell me more about these," he says, nodding his head at the models. "It is important, after all, to know what my employees are up to."

"Of course," she says, playing along, and matches his smile with her own. "A little unprofessional, perhaps..."

This is the first time she gets to see him hide himself; a mask slides over his face and it's like he's someone else entirely. (She thinks that maybe this is what he looked like at the funeral, when his father criticised him.) He turns away slightly, says, "Well, if that's how you feel. I wouldn't even consider taking advantage of the power balance, but--"

"Robert," she says, surprising herself with the use of his first name -- and him, as well. "It's fine. I was joking."

"Joking," he repeats, shaping his mouth around the vowels. "Do you do that often?"

She glances back up, taken aback, then realises too slow that he was joking as well, in his own way -- dry, but humorous nevertheless, and she's surprised into a smile. "A little more than I should." She leans forward over the desk, whispers in a confidential tone. "I'm trying to quit. I'm down to five a day."

"Impressive," he says, with a nod, and she feels a stirring of something unusual. Fischer blinks for a second, looks like he's somewhere else, before normality returns to his stance and he takes a slight step back. "I'll wait in the lobby for you," he says, in a clipped, final tone.

Ariadne decides that perhaps she can feel anticipation.

-

It's odd, sitting across from Fischer -- "Robert," he says, strangely intense, "please call me Robert" -- with a coffee clasped between her hands. She hasn't had coffee in a long time, after it was badly affecting her ability to sleep, not since she was a student, and it takes her back to that place -- nervous and shy, and she tugs her hair out of the strict tie holding it up. It falls around her shoulders, reassuring her, and she resists the urge to hide behind it and instead thinks about how strange it is, the way life works out, the way that she's sat here opposite someone that -- a year ago -- she'd only ever seen in dreams.

"What are you thinking about?" Fischer asks -- _Robert_ asks -- and it's so unlike the conversation starter she'd come to expect from him that she blurts out an honest answer without thinking.

"About dreams," she says, and flushes, stares down at her coffee and the way her fingers frame the cup.

Robert nods, once, as though she's said something very important. "Do you know, I --" He stops himself, pauses. "Maybe this was a mistake, I'm sorry."

He stands, turns to leave, and she's struck all over again by his intense vulnerability and the way he tries so hard to hide it, and it's suddenly the easiest thing in the world to reach out and curl her fingers around his wrist, to give him her brightest and best smile. "No, it wasn't. Please --" she gestures at his seat "--tell me what you were going to say."

He does, reluctantly, almost like a skittish animal, and she feels those faint stirrings of anticipation. He opens his mouth, closes it again, laughs at himself quietly. "I feel like I've seen you before," he says, and she says, "I was on a plane with you, once."

"That's not entirely what I was thinking of," he responds, then subsides into silence, apparently content to just stare at her. It's off-putting at first, but she gets used to it -- it's not an unpleasant feeling. "The woman of my dreams," he reminds her. 

"The woman of your dreams," she echoes.

-

The other people in the office talk but it's worth it, all of it, just to see him smile, to see him stare at her a little too long. She finds herself blushing, wearing things that she knows he likes, pleased by the way he sometimes appears taken aback.

"Marry me," he says once, sudden and impulsive, and she says, "But we -- I hardly know you, Robert, be reasonable."

"You subscribe to reason now?" he asks her, unsmiling, and she cannot think of anything to say. "Ariadne, I can't imagine being with anyone else."

She can't think of an incentive to say no.

-

Their honeymoon is weird. Ariadne feels a little bit like she's in a dream, catches herself rubbing her thumb over the base of her bishop more times than she'd like to admit. She gets on with Robert, exceptionally well -- he thinks like she does, most of the time, and she doesn't have to point things out to him, just turns to see him, and he's ready with an answering smile. She feels a little bit like they've been married forever, like this is just a holiday, and it's easy. (She runs over the journey in her mind -- wedding, car, hotel, airplane, hotel.)

They hold hands and lay by the pool, even though neither of them are really laying-by-the-pool kind of people, and it's not long before she jumps up and snatches his laptop out of his hands, places it under his lounge chair and says, "Okay, come on, get up. There must be something to do around here."

He smiles -- that careful, slow, blossoming smile which is unlike any she's seen before -- and stands up carefully. He's not wearing a suit -- just a loose shirt and no tie -- and he looks uncomfortable and out of his zone and her heart clenches a little bit, knowing that he's doing that for her. "What do you have in mind?"

This _is_ their honeymoon, after all, and it's something about that smile which takes hold of her. She closes her fingers around his, cool and pale, and brings him down to kiss him. Dry and uninspiring, always, but there's something there and she gets a certain sense of satisfaction from the way he always looks slightly dazed as he pulls back. He reaches up to push a strand of hair out of her face, eyes never leaving hers, and she thinks _yes_. This is what she wants -- to be with someone, to love someone and maybe they're not two halves of the same whole, or whatever bullshit Mal was spewing, but maybe that's not entirely healthy. 

What they have might not be better but it's good, it could be really good.

-

The first time she sees Arthur after _it_, after _everything_, she turns instinctively to check that Robert isn't around, even as she knows that she's dreaming. Still, she can't help thinking -- what if it's him, what if he's here -- even as she's sure a projection of Robert will pop into sight at any moment, concerned and guilt-inducing. Arthur sees her and smiles -- a real smile, something genuine, not the perfunctory quirk of his lips that he shared when he felt like he should. And then it's easy, it's _too_ easy to hurry towards him, walking at first and then breaking into a jog, her messenger bag bouncing uncomfortably against her hip (and that should be another clue -- she hasn't touched that bag since her days at college).

"I missed you," she says, short of breath and laughing with relief, resting one hand on his shoulder to steady herself as her eyes rake over him. She takes in every detail desperately, the sight of him like air to a drowning man -- the slicked back hair, the lines around his eyes. "God, I missed you, Arthur," and he takes her hand.

She wakes up.

Robert is in bed next to her, sheets dragged ungracefully across his body, his chest rising and falling, slow and even with every breath. Every time she sees him, she's uncomfortably reminded of the dreamers in Yusef's basement -- unable to dream and doing everything within their grasp to recover that power. Robert is the opposite, the other side of the coin, scared to death of what he might uncover in his own mind, of what his dreams might lead him to. He spends night after night on a new sedative or other, searching for a dreamless sleep.

She kisses his bare shoulder, and wonders when her dreams became the most unpredictable part of her life.

-

Arthur is waiting for her, sat outside a cafe in Paris with a drink in his hand. He looks perfectly unrumpled, but there are lines around his eyes and he nods in acknowledgement. She sits down in front of him and wonders when her subconscious started thinking about him.

"I think the phrase you're looking for is when did it _stop_," he corrects her and she feels vaguely incestuous, conversing with herself. Still, Cobb did it -- and that's an excuse, not a reason.

"Isn't this all, you know," she waves a hand, encompassing their surroundings, "all a bit weird?"

"Indubitably," he says, and they share a smile. "But you've never been exactly normal, Ariadne. Perhaps this is simply what you want."

"_Robert_ is what I want," she says and Arthur shrugs one shoulder.

"Then perhaps this is what you need."

-

One night, she steals two of Robert's pills -- lies to him, and says she has trouble sleeping. His face relaxes into a smile and he wraps his fingers around hers. "I'm sorry," he says, quite seriously, and the guilt thrives and doubles in her stomach (and she loved him once, and may well love him still). "I wish I could be more attentive."

She squeezes his hand, musters a smile of her own in return. "Don't feel bad, really," and it's just a circle of guilty, and she just wants to smooth it all away; the furrows on his brow as he struggles night after night to find the source of his discomfort. "It's not your fault."

"I just," he starts, pauses. "This is good, right? What we have. It's... good?" He says it uncertainly, as though he's unsure of the concept, and she manages to keep her smile up.

"It's good, Robert."

-

It's not a surprise to see him, not anymore. She's fallen back into old habits of creation -- parks and galleries and labyrinths still, secure in the knowledge that Robert could not wander into her dream and find them (and he wouldn't -- but what if, what if, what if).

She's not sure who makes the first move but either way, it's her. It's the next step in daydreams, and she can't resist the urge to do everything she's ever wanted -- curl her fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck that he can't reach to slick down, rest her forehead against his and just look into her eyes. It's a little pathetic but she's been thinking about it since she was nineteen and an idea is the most resilient parasite, after all.

"But you're not real, are you," she says softly in his ear and he turns and says, "I'm as real as you want me to be."

It's so cheesy and distinctly unlike him that she pulls away, and it's like a kick in its own right. "No," and if only she could wake herself from a natural dream, "you're not."

She's there the next night, however, and so is he, and it's just -- there's such a strong yearning for him, she just wants him so badly, and she'd been able to hide it and forget about it but seeing him now, even as a projection, is just too much. And it's not cheating if it's in a dream, after all. It's not called reality and it's so natural to pull him towards her, to smile and enjoy being near him and she lets herself pretend, just for a little while, that it's real. That it could be.

-

They sit opposite each other at the table, and she hands him the business and finance pages from the newspaper. The tablecloth is fresh and white, with a vase of sunflowers, and it's everything that it should be, somehow. She reaches out for the glass of orange juice at her right hand without looking; the glass knocks against her fingertips and falls over, the stain spreads like sunlight.

She looks at it dumbly; frozen and forgetful of what comes next. Robert doesn't look away from his paper.

-

"Ariadne," Arthur says, in warning, and steps back carefully. "Have I been misinformed about your marriage to Fischer?"

"I thought you were a projection," she says lamely, for lack of any real defence, and she's frustrated and utterly unsurprised when he raises an eyebrow and says, "It must be terribly wearying for you to greet all your projections like that."

"This is a dream," she reminds him shortly. "It doesn't exactly follow the same rules as reality." 'Adultery' hangs between them, a word neither are willing to speak. Still, it's not as though it's cheating if it's with her own projections, surely -- more just an exploration of an idea. (It sounds weak, even now -- even to her own ears.) "Why are you here, anyway?" It's a welcome subject change and they fall into step automatically, something else that she'd thought she'd lost. "It's been years, Arthur, you'll have to excuse me if I'm a little surprised."

"It has," he agrees, disregarding the latter part of her sentence entirely -- an infuriating habit, one she'd forgotten, and her projections suddenly seem all the more lacking for it. "Saito died." The sentence has a greater impact on her than she thought it would; she stumbles, reaches out for a bench, a wall, _anything_, and finds only Arthur. "I just thought I'd inform you," he continues, slipping an arm around her waist and allowing her to lean into him for support as though it is some inconsequential action. "In case you wished to attend."

"Oh," she says distractedly -- and she feels terrible that now, when she should be thinking of Saito, she can think only of Arthur's arms, strong and warm, and the familiar scent of his cologne. "Yes, I -- I think I'll be going with Robert, probably."

"As you wish." He deposits her neatly on a bench, smoothes a strand of hair behind her ear and turns to depart.

"So that's it?" she calls after him, as he raises a gun to his head ("Inelegant," he'd said once, "but sufficient"). "Not even a 'hey, Ariadne, how's it going?'"

He shoots her an inscrutable expression over his shoulder, and smiles. "Beautiful as ever, Ariadne," he says, and pulls the trigger.

-

It's odd, being at a funeral with Robert -- with her _husband_. She feels grown up, and strangely moreso than she did when she got married. Anyone can get married, after all, at almost any age, but funerals are different. The death of someone she knows, someone she worked with, someone who wasn't just a relative or so-called "family friend" -- it feels like an adult situation to be in, and maybe that's why she feels out of her depth as she checks her hair in the mirror for the second time.

"You look very nice," Robert says, as he waits for her at the foot of the staircase, but Ariadne knows that he means _different_. She looks different and it's by design, for once; she wants to show the team that she isn't the same dumb student she was then, and that she didn't stay stagnant after they left her. She has a husband now and a job, she doesn't play around in dreams, she lives in the real world. She frowns at her reflection in the mirror and fastens a necklace around her throat before descending carefully down the stairs to meet Robert.

He holds his arm out to her and she takes it with only a slight hesitation. She's a grown-up now. 

-

Cobb catches her eye, smiles, with two teenagers by his side looking moody and uncomfortable. They look older than in the dream, and she realises with a start how many years ago that actually was. She _is_ an adult now, at least to them, and she feels as though she's supposed to have it all figured out. (She does, she does.) She feels ridiculous suddenly, in her neat black dress and hair scraped back, misses the way it falls loose around her face, the freedom of jeans and a scarf around her neck.

But she's the wife of a businessman now, and a businesswoman herself, almost -- she can't look and act the same way she did when she was nineteen. Ariadne holds her head high, shoves her hands deep in her pockets and stares straight ahead. It'll get easier. Dreams become reality, after all.

Arthur is directly opposite her and it takes her a moment for the sight to register fully; she feels sick, the bottom dropping out of her stomach, and her hands start shaking where they're fisted deep inside her pockets. He inclines his head slightly in acknowledgement she can feel her cheeks burning red, Robert looking at her curiously. He lowers his head enough to whisper in her ear -- "Who is that, Ariadne? I feel I almost recognise him."

"We were on a flight together, that's all," she says, surprised at the strength of her voice, and Robert accepts that as enough of an answer. He chooses not to remember much of the period around his father's death, and she feels guilty for taking advantage of this.

Still, she can't stop glancing up to look at him the whole time, checking that he's still there (that she's not going to wake up). She didn't have a chance to look properly in her dream -- really shouldn't be looking now, to be entirely honest, but there's not really anywhere else for her to look. Apart from the coffin, but -- she's not going to stare at it, like it's some form of entertainment. Arthur's hair is still slicked back, and he's wearing the long coat that brushes his knees (she used to imagine him wrapping it around her, used to imagine wrapping her legs around his waist) and she blushes darkly, ashamed of her thoughts at a funeral, of all places.

And then glances back, a moment later, unable to keep away. His eyes are dark, holding secrets deep inside them, not like Robert's bright blue honest eyes. They meet her own and she feels a flash of heat, stronger than anything she's felt in years, and that, at least, is enough to make her duck her head and glance away. Holding Robert's hand feels like a betrayal, but that's a feeling that she finds herself getting more and more used to.

-

She's not entirely sure how it happens -- a flash of his eyes, a glance through her eyelashes -- but he follows her into the toilet and his hands are on either side of his face. He's searching her expression intently, looking for something that she can only pray he'll find, and he's so much more than she ever dreamed he was.

"Arthur," she says, hushed, trying not to break the spell, and he says, "Ariadne."

She always loved hearing him say her name, like it was something special. Now he says it like it's a secret. 

"I don't--" and it's so easy to bridge the gap between them, to press their mouths together, and it's so much more _real_. His lips are chapped slightly and warm and she wraps her arms around his neck and holds on like she's drowning. She presses her body to his, exulting in how solid and firm he is, and he kisses her feverishly like he's drowning.

He slams her against the wall and she exhales sharply, head tipping back and hitting something solid. Pain shoots through her, dark and sudden, but Arthur's kissing along her neck and shoulder and she lets out an involuntary moan, all her senses taken up by him. It's so much more than a dream -- he envelops her and surrounds her and she gives him all of her, thinking of nothing but the way he tastes and his fingers digging into her hips, bruises blooming against them.

"Arthur," she gasps, clutching him like a lifeline, and he murmurs, "Ariadne."

-

She rejoins Robert, slipping her hand into his and kissing his cheek and his fingers are cool and gentle. She's aware that she should be terrified or ashamed or be feeling a multitude of emotions but instead she feels strangely satisfied. Content, like she didn't know she could be. She hasn't done anything impulsive in so long and now she feels hyper aware of Arthur's eyes on her, even still, burning through her clothes and she feels embarrassed and attractive under his gaze.

Cobb catches her eye, looking faintly disapproving, but Ariadne refuses to allow him to make her feel guilty. She's still waiting for the enormity of what she's done to fully hit her -- _an adulteress_, that's the name for her, and yet on some level it feels strangely thrilling and exciting, utterly unlike anyone she ever thought she'd be.

Robert frowns at something she can't see, removes his hand from her grasp and places it on her shoulder instead. "Browning's over there; I need to go speak with him."

"Take as long as you need," she says wildly, feeling crazy and lighter than air. "I'll wait in the car."

"If you're sure," he says. She's never been surer.

-

She hooks her leg over his, turns her face into his shoulder. She loves seeing him like this; all his smooth expanses of skin, _hers_, to trace with her tongue. It's not -- with Robert, she didn't find him unattractive, but she was never fascinated by him like she is with Arthur, never wanted to sit and drink him all in with her eyes, never wanted to commit all of him to memory. 

"Comfortable, are you?" Arthur asks, dry and amused, and she makes a vaguely affirmative noise into his shoulder. 

"I used to fantasise about you," she says, and it's sort of reassuring to find out that she can still be embarrassed around him, even now. She hides her face and he laughs, grasps her wrists and moves them gently away from her face.

"I didn't," he says, "not for lack of wanting to. I -- you were _nineteen_, Ariadne, shit, that would've made me--"

"A dirty old man," she says, "mmmm," and snuggles closer. "Just how I like it."

He rolls his eyes, still smiling. "So there's a daddy kink that I don't know about?"

"Maybe just a you kink," she says thoughtfully, just for the way it makes him laugh and roll her onto her back, pinning her wrists above her head. The mattress dips underneath them, and Ariadne wishes she could take a snapshot of him like this, bright and laughing above her.

_I love you_ she thinks suddenly, but some things are best unsaid.

  
-

"Mal said something to me once," she says, without meaning to -- there's something about Arthur that lets down her defences in a way she's never quite become accustomed to, gets rid of the last remaining filter between her mind and mouth. "Something -- about not understanding what it means to be a lover, to be one half of the same whole."

"And do you now?" he asks her, speaking more easily in the darkened corner of the cinema (and he's always most eloquent when she can't meet his eyes).

"I didn't," she says. "But -- I think I'm beginning to."

His arm tightens around her shoulder and she thinks -- _it means not being able to imagine a life without you_, and flushes, because there's such a thing as too much honesty even kept to herself. _Especially_ kept to herself.

-

"I didn't ask you," Ariadne says, short and angry (and she's never liked having her failings pointed out to her, never liked being told to stop) and Eames hums around his coffee cup and says, "No, you didn't, did you."

He's old, she realises with a start; ten years has made a difference and while his face is still smooth and soft, there's something in his eyes that she hasn't seen before. Loneliness, maybe, and it makes her uncomfortable to look too closely -- so she glances down at the surface of her coffee and stirs her spoon around and around. She doesn't say anything for a while, reluctant to break the silence and feeling more than a little bit like the angry, sulky nineteen year old that she was then. Immature and petty, and Eames smirks at her like he knows exactly what she's thinking.

"Look, darling, I'm not going to pull any punches, so to speak. I'm an honest person and you're a big girl now, so I think you can deal with it."

Ariadne isn't entirely sure that she _can_ deal with it; all she wants to do right now is to go home and curl up in bed, pull the blankets over her and erase the last ten years of her life. But that's not an option (and besides, she wouldn't want to give up her time with Arthur, can't even imagine the loss) and so she tosses her hair and says, "Go on, then. You're obviously going to say what you want anyway."

"Good girl," Eames says, unsmiling, and takes a long swallow of his coffee. "I know you're used to doing exactly what you want -- don't think we didn't all find out about why you came into the dream, you're the architect, for goodness' sake -- but this is different. That was, in your own little way, for the best. This isn't."

"You don't know anything about this--" she starts, but Eames raises a finger and effectively silences her.

"No, maybe not. But I know Arthur -- better than you do, in some ways -- and you're not being fair to him. Do you think that he likes being kept as your dirty little secret?"

Ariadne flushes, feeling momentarily sick. "He's not..."

"Whatever you two are doing clearly isn't public knowledge, so don't try and deny that one, sweetheart." Eames uses endearments the way other people use insults; saccharine sweet but with a bite to them that leaves Ariadne shaken. "I'm not going to touch the issue of that husband of yours -- God knows inception fucked him up enough -- but maybe you should think about that yourself. To love and to honour, isn't it?" He scrapes his chair along the floor and leans over her, dropping a kiss on her forehead. "Don't get me wrong, Ariadne, you're a lovely girl. But -- what's the term used? Maybe it's time to shit or get off the pot." He shrugs, slinging his jacket over one shoulder. "Crude, but effective at conveying my meaning."

"You're a dick," she says softly, unwilling to admit the truth in what he's said -- it stings too much, right now, and she's been perfectly happy in burying the problems down. Now Eames has just made them rise to the top and -- oh, God, she's going to have to do something about it all.

"I'm an honest dick," Eames says helpfully, and digs a few bills out of his pocket, leaves them on the table. "Good luck, love."

-

She wishes that she could give her two weeks' notice in some sort of physical way, imagines a brown paper packet, handing it over with her hands shaking. Robert's not her boss anymore, at least; hasn't been since their relationship continued past the professional, but it's bound to get back to him sooner or later and she can't -- she doesn't -- she's betrayed him so many ways already, though, one more shouldn't be unusual. Besides, she thinks, with an air of bitterness new to her, he'll probably only find out when his assistant tells him.

Jill allows her in, buzzes her through, and Ariadne takes her seat opposite the desk. She shouldn't feel nervous -- she's made millions for this company and she's not that far from an equal, but there's something about being on the wrong side of the desk that always manages to intimidate her. Jill folds her hands on the table, leans forward with a facsimile of a smile. "What is it that you wanted to speak to me about, Ms Fischer?"

She shouldn't have taken Robert's name, but she thought it'd help to do things properly. She gathers her strength, thinks of Eames but not of Arthur, as though this is one place she can't bring him even in her mind. "I'd like to inform you of my two weeks' notice."

Jill looks delighted, strangely, but her next words explain the seemingly illogical reaction. "Would this be maternity leave?"

"Um," Ariadne says, floored. "No? I -- what, no, we're not even... I haven't even thought about that."

"Oh." Jill leans back, her smile at odds with her confused expression. "I just thought -- Mr Fischer was so agreeable to the idea of marriage, of course, and --"

"Wait, what, no, stop," Ariadne blurts out, feeling sick (and maybe this is what betrayal feels like, and maybe she's not just on the wrong side of the desk). "You _told_ Robert to marry me?"

"No, of course not," Jill says, smiling as though Ariadne's a small child who doesn't understand simple concepts. "We just suggested it to him. A stable family environment always looks best in the company, and it's not as though he wasn't already considering it. Be reasonable, Ms Fischer."

"Ariadne," she snaps, pushing her chair back so hard that it tips and falls, the legs scraping the backs of her own. "My name is Ariadne, and consider this my resignation."

It's stupid, later, to feel like she's been wronged -- after everything, and after Robert, and it's all her fault anyway. Sometimes she wishes she could tell him, curl up next to him on the sofa and say _I was inside your mind, once_ but it's too far now and she's someone else. All he did wrong was to marry her, to dream about her, to want what she showed him. 

She wants to pick up the phone and dial Arthur's number and wishes that she had that freedom (baby steps, Ariadne, you're taking baby steps). She wants to talk to him, to read his expression the way she never understood Robert's; the quirk of Arthur's mouth which means he's amused, the slight dip of an eyebrow when he disapproves. Something about him always makes her feel better, comfort her, and it's selfish to crave that but she needs it right now more than Robert's awkward touches.

She doesn't tell Robert. There's time yet.

-

Sitting at home, on the couch that his assistant picked out for them, Ariadne considers many options -- leaving Robert a note (callous), going out to dinner (just as bad), even, in her more panicked moments, performing inception on him to give him the idea to leave her. She never thinks about that one seriously, though, too aware of the damage it would probably end up doing to both of them. Besides, Ariadne's thought of herself as a lot of things in her life, but never a coward. They're barely married at the moment as it is; sharing a bed and saying goodbye to each other in the mornings is as far as it goes.

Maybe he won't be upset, she thinks hopefully, but -- maybe he wouldn't, if she was just ending the marriage, but. He trusted her, in a way that she knows he's found difficult to do after everything with Browning, and she let him down. There aren't any excuses she can tell herself, nothing can really make this okay. She was wrong, wrong in a big way, and sympathy is the last thing she needs. She doesn't _deserve_ sympathy -- not in a martyred way, just in a 'let's be truthful with yourself here, Ariadne' way.

She waits up for him to come home, still dressed. She was tempted to put on her jeans, tie a scarf around her neck but that would be too far -- she doesn't want to emphasise that she's leaving, doesn't want to cut ties with her life. She enjoyed it, some of it, and that's not what this is about, anyway. It's about her and Robert and it would be unfair of her to make it about anything else. Unfair to him.

The door opens and closes, a creaking, whining noise that they always talked about getting fixed and never did. (_Maybe if he'd given his assistant a memo_, she starts to think, but it's too cruel.) Fear and guilt are roiling inside of her, along with an edge of anticipation that she refuses to acknowledge (she'll be free after this, free in a way that she hasn't been outside of her dreams in years). She sees Robert's dishevelled hair, his half smile, surprise and pleasure showing in his eyes.

"You waited up," he says, pleased, and the anticipation drains out of her to be replaced with a sick sense of dread. He leans over to kiss her and she flinches away, embarrassed, and curses herself for doing so. 

"I'm sorry," she says, at a loss as how to start, and his expression falls (and she'll always remember that, the way he went from happy to hurt in a second, and the fact that she made him look like that). "I -- Robert, I'm so sorry, I never meant for any of this."

It's scary, watching his defences fall into place -- one after another, slamming shut, until his face is closed and expressionless. "Any of what," he says flatly, and she can feel the tears beginning to well up in spite of all she's doing to prevent them. "Any of _what_, Ariadne?" She dashes a tear away with the back of her hand, holding her breath to avoid full on sobbing, and he slams his briefcase on the table. "Tell me what you've done!"

"I'm leaving you." The words are ripped out of her, torn from her throat, leaving her feeling raw and bleeding. "I'm sorry, Robert, I can't do this."

Robert doesn't move, doesn't say anything, and all his attention is focused on her. "How long?"

"What?" She looks up from where she's hidden her face in her hands, barely able to look at him. "I don't know, it's not -- I'm not --"

"And who is he?" Robert is calmer than she's ever seen him, but his anger is contained in his hands -- fists clenched tightly, shaking slightly, and she can already tell that there'll be half-moon grooves in his palm (she almost moves to uncurl them, press her lips to the cuts, but she can't do that anymore). 

"I don't know what you mean," she says, but it comes out barely more than a whisper, and there's a level of intensity in Robert's eyes that suggests it's best not to try lying to him.

"I'm not stupid, Ariadne, and I'd appreciate if you stopped treating me as such. Who is he, and how long has it been going on?"

"It's Arthur," she says, hating herself for being so weak, when she's not even the victim -- nowhere near. "And -- I don't know, I don't. Since the funeral."

Robert opens and closes his mouth a few times, biting off sentences before they're spoken, and turns away. "Arthur. From the plane."

"From the plane," she echoes, wishing there was something she could do to make it all go away. "Robert--"

"If you say you're sorry one more time," he snaps out, whirling back around to face her. "I don't want to hear it, Ariadne. Just..." He covers his face, not allowing her to catch even a glimpse of emotion, and gestures at the door. "Get out."

"Robert..."

"_Get out_."

She leaves, because there's nothing else she can do.

-

Arthur's waiting for her when she finally comes home.


End file.
